Day 12: Dining Fancy at Cambridge

23 January 2018

Today was a very eventful day...well, at least the latter half was. We had a very long drive to Cambridge from Bristol that took even longer than planned because of traffic issues. Yep, there’s no possible way to escape traffic, even if you’re in a different country. 

Once we arrived in Cambridge, we stopped at Kings College. We took a self-guided tour of the chapel and saw many of the same things that we would see at other famous churches, including the architecture. This chapel is notable because Henry VI founded the College in which the chapel is located in. After this tour, we had some free time and we decided to visit a music store which took quite a while to find. We saw many awesome things including a £13,000 grand piano! 




Our next stop was Selwyn College. We changed into part of our choir robes and were ready to rehearse with the Selwyn College Chapel Choir led by Sarah MacDonald, a very notable woman in English music, which our presentation pointed out last week. After we rehearsed, the service began. This Evensong had the same layout as the others; the only difference was that a small homily was inserted towards the end. The crowd was much smaller for this service, as there were only a few older members of the congregation and the four R-MC students that were not a part of the choir. The R-MC College choir sang the Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, and Bethlehem Down with the Selwyn choir. 

While the layout of the service was mostly the same, there were many differences with the experience in general. For example, this choir was mostly college students, which is different from the mix of younger girls and older men at Salisbury and the teenagers at Bristol Cathedral. Also, we were intertwined with the Selwyn choir instead of being separate like in past Evensong services. Lastly, I also thought the choir director was much better than in past services; she was very particular about what she wanted, she was very-detail oriented, and she gave her cues clearly. 

The service went very well, and I thought that this was personally my best performance yet. Having a Selwyn tenor next to me for the Magnificat helped me to better sing the part. When we switched to Bethlehem Down, I was nervous that I would not have been able to get the alto part down perfectly because I was surrounded by tenors and bases, but I did very well! I’ve enjoyed being a part of these services; it’s sad that we only have one left before we head back home! 



Dinner was unlike anything we had ever experienced before. We all went straight from the chapel and went straight to the school’s dining hall, which was gigantic and had four long rows of tables. It was like something out of a Harry Potter movie. We all sat down and chatted with our neighbors, and then we had to stand as a loud bell rang and the professors all entered to eat. We then sat down and had our meal, which consisted of fried prawns, lamb, carrots, scallops potatoes, and a vanilla tart for desert. During and after dinner, some of us decided to partake in the consuming of some wine and ginger beer. I’m sure some will regret that when we have to get up early in the morning. Otherwise, tonight was a very fun night and I would love to eat in that type of setting again another day! 

- Jacob Stech 

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